Sexual Assault: The Perpetrator, the Victim and the Representative
of Justice

By: Beth McHugh 2010

In all cases of sexual assault, there is the perpetrator and the victim.
In some cases, there is an introduction of a third party: the representative
of justice. The latter only comes into the picture when the victim reports
the crime, which according to available statistics, is in the minority.
This means that most crimes of a sexual nature go unreported.

This situation clearly is not good, but it gets worse. Often there
is an expectation by the victim that, if they report the crime, justice
will be done. This belief, while reasonable, is sadly not what the justice
system is about. As Billy Bragg, the famous UK singer/songwriter once
said in his song “Rotting on Remand”: “This isn’t
a court of justice, son, this is a court of law”.

There are so many examples where a victim of sexual assault will take
the brave step of coming forward and working their way through the mentally
grueling task of going through the court system only to emerge feeling
angry, betrayed and in fact, re-victimized by a system that does not
adequately address the crime of sexual assault.

Attending a rape case in court is like attending a character assassination
– except the person on trial is the victim, who in a strange twist
of “justice” seems to have to prove that they are innocent,
rather than having the focus on the perpetrator and his or her innocence
or otherwise.

Of course, this situation becomes even worse when the crime involves
a juvenile and the perpetrator involves a minister of religion. Here
the “trial” is initially conducted outside of a court of
law, and is done internally by the church concerned. Although there
are sadly many cases of children being assaulted by members of the clergy,
in recent times it is the Roman Catholic Church that is currently under
the spotlight for the way it has handled repeated episodes of sexual
assault on its own child members for generations.

At present even the Pope is under scrutiny for his actions in an apparent
cover up in his capacity as being the past head of corruption in the
church when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. For a child victim of
sexual assault, being raped by a priest equates to being raped by God,
and fewer adults will believe the child than if the accusation was against
a member of the general public. For an adult to come out and accuse
a priest of sexual crimes is a huge effort, something which is largely
incomprehensible to anyone who has not been in this position.

But to have the assault dismissed and covered up is an even greater
crime. When I work with victims of sexual assault, it is almost always
a universal given that the person who is in a position of restoring
truth and justice, and who fails to do so, is the worst perpetrator
of all.

I will watch with interest as to how the Pope deals with these latest
revelations from his past.